Renowned track coach Dick Booth to join Florida's staff

Renowned field-events coach Dick Booth, who has spent the past 27 years helping to build Arkansas into a national power, has been named assistant track and field coach at the University of Florida.

Booth will be responsible for coaching the jumps and assisting with recruiting and other key phases of the program, UF head coach Mike Holloway said.

Booth spent 27 seasons as the men’s field-events coach at Arkansas and also has served as the head coach at Louisiana-Lafayette. Every Arkansas school record-holder in the men’s field events was either coached or recruited by Booth.

“We are extremely excited to hire a coach of Dick’s caliber,” Holloway said. “We look forward to him joining our program and helping us continue towards our goal of becoming the best team in the country.”

During his four-year tenure as head coach at Louisiana-Lafayette from 1985-88, Booth was responsible for two individual national championships, five All-Americans and 19 school record-holders.

During his time at Arkansas, Booth was responsible for 45 individual national championships and 137 All-America honors. Additionally, he coached 11 Olympians.

About the blog

Florida Gators fans, welcome to the Gator Report for all your news about Gators football, basketball and all UF sports. It's written by University of Florida beat writer Antonya English and the staff of the Tampa Bay Times. We invite your comments and participation.